


TRASH

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, I hope you're listening Marvel, I'm making a STATEMENT here, Metafiction, Steve Rogers WILL KICK YOUR ASS, What fresh hell is this, hydra!cap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 14:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6989494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers finds out about the Hydra!Cap storyline and gets PISSED. A little therapeutic fic about BURNING THAT TRASHY IDEA TO HELL.</p>
            </blockquote>





	TRASH

**Author's Note:**

> My friend and I thought we needed Steve to find out about the Hydra!Cap storyline and be righteously offended, and so this happened. Unbeta'd and written in less than an hour, so take pity.

Bob can’t believe his eyes when Steve Rogers, Actual Certified Steve Rogers, walks into his comic book store and - okay, no, _storms_ \- he rectifies, Actual Certified Steve Rogers _storms_ into his comic book store and strides towards the new releases.

Bob darts out from behind the cash register and chases after the guy twice the size of him because, hello, it’s Captain Freakin’ America. “Hi? Sir? Can I help you find something?”

He stops, turns, and if Bob isn’t mistaken, that’s actual fire in his eyes. Can super soldiers do that now? Like a Cyclops upgrade or something. “The new Captain America,” he bites. “Where is it?” 

“Er…” and okay, don’t judge Bob, but he’s totally forgotten how to speak what with Captain Freakin’ America standing in _his_ comic book store and now _looking at him_ and stuff. Instead, he points to the stack by the cash register that he was in the process of putting out. 

“I need them.”

“O...okay,” Bob says. He runs over to the desk, and starts to count them. “How many exactly, Mr-, Captain America, um, sir?”

“All of them,” he says, and puts a honest-to-god roll of Hamiltons on his desk. 

“Er…” 

“Is that the right amount? The man at Dave’s said that you-” 

“Hold up, you went to _Dave’s Comics_?” Bob exclaims, suddenly finding his voice again, because fucking _Dave_? _Really_?! “Why the hell were you- never mind, not important, the guy’s favourite superhero is Batman though, I mean, _really_ , he’s not even a _real_ one -”

“I’ve been to every store in central New York. You’re my last stop.”

“It’s 9am,” Bob says, baffled. “I’ve barely even put them out-”

“It was an early start,” he says, and in one swoop, scoops the stack of comics, not yet even bagged and boarded, into a black bag. 

Bob gasps open-mouthed at the sacrilege taking place right in front of his eyes. New run, first issue, mint condition… kids would have _killed_ for those, and now Cap is on some kind of ego boost mission or something just… oh god, look at all those crumpled pages. He’s going to cry. He’s actually going to cry. “Why?” Bob manages to squeak out. 

“Because,” Actual Certified Steve Rogers growls, “this piece of shit should never have seen the light of day.”

Now Bob is gaping for an entirely different reason. “Did you just… swear? I didn’t know you could swear.”

“Popular misconception. Did anyone buy this comic before I got here? Any kids?” 

He’s deathly serious, Bob realises. Holy shit. “No, Cap, no, sir. You were the first-” 

And then he’s out the door and Bob’s like: _did that seriously just happen_.

-

“Dude,” Sam says, trying to drag away Steve from where he’s hunched over the computer at the kitchen table. “You can’t physically remove every copy from the internet. That’s not how the internet works.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Steve bites, and then, feels immediately guilty. Sam knows he can use technology, he’s just teasing. Steve leans back from the laptop and rubs his eyes. “I’m sorry, Sam, it’s just… if I can just make these companies realise what they’re selling… I’ve gotten try to get through to them. I just don’t understand why they won’t take responsibility for their audience. All these young kids, young Jewish kids… Cap’s their hero, he stands for something, y’know? And you can’t just-” 

Sam rests his hand on his shoulder, and squeezes it in reassurance. “I know, buddy. But it’s out there, and you can’t get it back. It’s too late.”

Steve drops his head into his hands. “When I came out of the ice, they told me all this stuff had kept going - the comics, and the stories, and merchandise - and they asked… Sam, they _asked_ me if I wanted to oversee it, to approve everything, or if they could just keep going. And I… Sam, I said I wanted no part in it. They’d done such a good job, making Cap more than human, more than I could ever be, making him… something to aspire to, you know? I trusted them. And if I had just-” 

Sam cuts him off with a sigh and a shake of the head. He pulls out a chair and sits beside Steve, looking glumly at the thousand emails displayed on the screen. “You had a lot going on when you came back, Steve, don’t blame yourself for this. No one saw this coming-” 

“No,” Steve says. “It’s not just one person that makes a comic. Hundreds of people will have approved it. There will have been a board meeting when all these big shots sat down in a room and said, yes, yes this is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. And I just can’t believe that not a single person in that single room _fought_ for it, that none of them had doubts, or thought it might be something they ought to run past me, at least, they just all… accepted it.” 

“Maybe it’ll be temporary? You know comics, it’ll be a clone, or a long game, or an alternative universe, or the good ol’ fashioned brainwashing defence-” 

Steve raises his eyebrow. That cut a little too close to home. 

Sam raises his hands. “Sorry, didn’t mean to make a dig at your favourite little assassin. But, you know, this could all just… blow over,” he says, making a swooping gesture with his hands.

Steve shakes his head bitterly, and then stands. “It doesn’t matter, Sam. They’ve done it. It’s like you said, it’s out there and we can’t get it back.” 

He looks out over the table at the bags upon bags of trash by the door. “You ready?” 

“Man, I thought you’d never ask.” 

-

“I hope you realise the favours I pulled to get you these,” Natasha says, as she turns up to the bonfire in their garden with an entire van full of comics. 

“I appreciate it, Nat, thank you,” Steve says. 

Sam takes a box off her and starts throwing them into the fire. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I never thought I’d be the type to burn books. _Never_. I love comics, man, this feels so wrong.” 

“Normally I’d agree,” Steve says. “But I think the far worse crime is what’s in these pages.” 

Sam hums in agreement and takes a swig of beer. Then he tells Nat, “Steve didn’t even do this whole righteous fury thing properly by the way, he went store to store and actually fucking _paid_ for this trash.”

Steve defends, “They’re small independent businesses-” 

“-who are giving money to the creators,” Natasha finishes for him. 

Steve shakes his head. “I don’t want them to be out of pocket. They won’t buy the next issue, that’s good enough for me.”

“There won’t _be_ a next issue,” Sam corrects, “not when you’re done with them.”

“Hear, hear,” Natasha says.

They clink their beer glasses together, and watch as the entire fucking stupid idea that Captain America is somehow a fucking Nazi burns to hell. THE END. 

**Author's Note:**

> :-)


End file.
